“It is designed for dealing with events like our recent protests, or incidents like Mumbai or what just happened in Paris,” the commissioner [Bill Bratton] said.

So… it's designed for dealing with protests -- the most recent of which were kicked off by the clearing of a cop who choked an unarmed man to death. The other two incidents have nothing to do with New York other than the fact that the NYPD sent its own officers overseas at the request of nobody.

Apparently, the new unit will be armed to the teeth, as behooves riot protest cops.

“They’ll be equipped and trained in ways that our normal patrol officers are not,” Bratton said. “They’ll be equipped with all the extra heavy protective gear, with the long rifles and machine guns — unfortunately sometimes necessary in these instances.”

When asked if New Yorkers should expect to see police officers with “machine guns” at city protests, a spokesman for the NYPD told The Intercept, “No. They’re not carrying them at protests.” In general, however, the spokesman said officers would have access to the weapons “either on them or in their vehicles.”

So, they won't carry machine guns while policing protests, but they'll be in easy reach. Bratton stated that responding to protests and terrorist attacks require "overlapping skills," hence the creation of a single unit. There has been no further clarification on what these "skills" might be, other than possibly being able to discern whether it's a protest or terrorist attack they're dealing with and, consequently, whether the machine gun stays in the squad car.

This new unit must be something special. Or its already-existing counterpart must be something awful.

SRG also will supplement the 1,000-officer NYPD counterterrorism program, which has also been trained in heavy-weapons tactics, a police official said.

In addition to the 1,350 counterterrorist cops, there will be more surveillance. The NYPD's push to turn the city into the next London continues, with the promised addition of cameras in every subway car, accessible to both the conductor and "offsite" viewers within the PD.

Bratton is also pushing for something less lethal than "long rifles" to be carried by his cops.

The commissioner said he will also ask Mayor Bill de Blasio for more funding to buy more Tasers as an alternative to the use of force. Bratton reportedly wants at least 450 cops — five or six at each of the city’s 77 precincts — to carry Tasers on them, not leave them in their cars…

Well, I'd say Bratton need to fix the second part first. There's no reason to buy new Tasers if you can't get cops to carry them. Locking them up in the glovebox pretty much ensures that the only force officers can deploy will be of the "deadly" variety. The difference between tasing someone into submission and shooting someone into submission is often the difference between life and death. Of course, NYPD officers are also fond of other such "less-lethal" tactics like chokeholds and unprovoked beatings. Adding a Taser just means some citizen's going to have electricity pumped into his system on top of anything else the officers feel like deploying.

Using the word "terrorism" in a sentence is an easy way to route funds to your law enforcement agency. New York -- being both highly populated and an American icon -- is certainly high on the list of terrorist targets. But years of counterterrorist investigations have done very little to reduce the threat. The NYPD has been overselling and under-delivering on the "imminent terrorist threat" front for years. Because it has so little to police at home, it's been sending its officers around the world to actual terrorist attacks -- a tactic that has earned it little more than the irritated scorn of those actually charged with policing much more dangerous parts of the world.

Above and beyond all of this, there's Bratton's assertion that the same special unit should be tasked with counterterrorism and handling protests, as if the two were remotely related in any way. The message is clear: civil disobedience is an attack on New York City itself -- and Bratton's boys and girls trained in the art of counterterrorism will be on hand to break up the next one. To dissent is to strike terror into the NYPD -- itself a pleasant thought. But once the SRG hits the streets, it probably won't end well for those would-be terrorists and their evil protests.

Reader Comments

So it's official. Protests equal terrorism now. Honestly they should simply revoke all laws since it seems now the Police is the law given how everything else (including due process) is thrown out the window when they claim terrorism and terrorism means whatever they want.

more funding to buy more Tasers as an alternative to the use of force

As the article said it doesn't matter if they remain unused. But even worse, tasers can be lethal depending on where you apply the shock. So their non-lethality is shaky at best.

Re:

It should read, the world is fucked up and NYC wants to knock the other leaders out and be the new example of fucked up leaders.

Despite our penchant to call America the Great Evil sometimes, people have to remember, we are only just catching up. It is terrible, but there is truth to the idea that America is a greater world threat than a bunch of turds in bomb jackets. Americas corporate infrastructure and those free trade deals are more like a backdoor corporate attempt to invade another country economically.

Re: Not that they will

Where do you think they got the military weapons from? Who do you think sent the NYPD to Israel for training?

If you do not know the answer to those questions you have not been paying attention. Those who are serving within the federal government are doing those things unlawfully.

As long as we do not know what those who serve within our governments - state and federal - are ALLOWED to do, when we do not bother to actually learn real history - so what if the schools don't teach it, READ, RESEARCH yourself. Don't need to be lead by the hand.

Here, bet you are not aware of just how close to Nazi Germany we are here in America. Let me give you some examples.

Justice Robert Jackson, Chief U.S. Prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials (Nazi Germany about warrantless searches, etc): “Uncontrolled search and seizure is one of the first and most effective weapons in the arsenal of every arbitrary government. Among deprivations of rights, none is so effective in cowing a population, crushing the spirit of the individual and putting terror in every heart.”

A separate government was set up within the legitimate government within the Party to exercise outside the law every sanction that any legitimate state could exercise and many that it could not {Obama’s “Czars”, TSA, DHS}. The Party had its own secret police, its security units, its intelligence and espionage division, its raiding forces, and its youth forces {DHS, TSA, look up “Obama youth” on youtube.com}. It also established administrative mechanisms over time {Patriot Act, NDAA, warrantless searches, warrantless spying, TSA, etc} to identify those who supported the legitimate government. They “encouraged” the populace to inform on their own neighbors, friends, family {“See Something, Say Something”, and other videos the DHS put out here in America}.

Eventually they organized and dominated every phase of German life {as is being tried here thru the UN laws, and executive orders, bills, laws made here}. They created a “Party” police system, which became the pattern and the instrument of the police state, which was the first goal in their plan. {DHS and TSA – starting to arrange themselves throughout our nation to control our every move and where we can go: at airports, bus stations, train stations, Football stadiums, etc, even on our own roads.}

A presidential decree was created suspending the extensive guarantees of individual liberty contained in the constitution of the Weimar Republic. The decree provided that: "Sections 114, 115, 117, 118, 123, 124, and 153 of the Constitution of the German Reich are suspended until further notice.”

Those decree’s were restrictions on personal liberty, on the right of free expression of opinion - including freedom of the press, on the right of peaceful assembly, the right of association, and violations of the privacy: postal, telegraphic, and telephonic communications; and no need for warrants for house-searches, orders for, confiscations as well as restrictions on property, etc all taken away under the guise of “keeping the people safe”. {much like what is happening within the USA today, as all of the “restrictions” on our freedoms are “for our own safety”} Many were arrested as “belligerents” – no real crime committed, just disagreeing with the destruction of their legitimate government.

Secret arrest and indefinite detention; without charges, without evidence, without hearing, without counsel, and no court could issue an injunction, or writ of habeas corpus, or certiorari. The German people were in the hands of the police, the police were in the hands of the Nazi Party, and the Party was in the hands of a ring of evil men who wanted to rule the world. {NDAA, Patriot Act, various executive orders, warrantless arrests, New World Order, etc}

The chief instrument of keeping cohesion in plan and action was the National Socialist German Workers Party, known as the Nazi Party. First they were to infiltrate the legitimate government and from within bring about “change” {As is happening here, the replacement of our legitimate government with Domestic Enemies}. So began the first part of the “plan” which was to subvert the Weimar Republic. {Communist party and some Nazism taking over the Democratic party but renaming themselves as “Progressives”. Because if they use Nazi or Communist Party name many of the American people would be horrified because – they may not know all the facts, but know enough to recognize they do not want what happened in Germany to repeat itself here in America. But now they are so open about being supported by the communist party that the PRE MADE signs held up in Ferguson had the communist party name on it.}

- Some of their (Nazi) declared purposes sounded good to many good citizens, such as: "profit-sharing in the great industries," {Take from the 1% and share with all}

- "a land reform suitable to our national requirements," {BLM, US land given to Russia oil–rich Alaskan Islands, to other foreign nations, and “authority over our oceans to the UN; and now they can “take” our property, our land, our bank accounts, our vehicles, our labor, etc here in the USA}

- "raising the standard of health." {Obamacare}

- The Party said that a “strong centralized government” was needed. {Same as they are currently saying we need here in the USA}.

- It demanded the creation of a strong central power with unconditional authority, {Democratic (Progressive) political declarations}

- and a "reconstruction" of the educational system. {Same as they are saying we need here in the USA}.

So let's a dozen terrorists appear in Manhattan. What will they do? Take out the machine gun and start randomly shooting at them and at buildings, with hundreds or thousands of bullets flying everywhere?

Idiots. I don't know what this is for, but it's not to stop terrorism. It's probably a lot more useful for "terrorizing" regular citizens, and indeed scare them to come at protests "because cops have machine guns there".

Re:

The implied threat in cops brandishing automatic weapons during a peaceful demonstration is clear. There's only a few possibilities of how that could go—a chilling effect on the populace, a deadly mistake by an itchy-fingered officer, or an arms race-style escalation. It all ends badly.

Add another entry to the 'Why you should avoid NYC at all costs' list

For once, refreshing honesty from a cop: 'To us, protests and terrorism are one and the same, and both deserve the same response, that being a heavily armed response.'

Yeah, the 'because terrorist' is nothing more than a smokescreen here, the real purpose of the proposal is to get in on the sweet 'Threatening protesters with military level gear' racket so many other police agencies have been enjoying.

If I had to guess, the recent protests against the police in that city has the spineless cowards running scared, and he figures if he can equip his cops with heavy duty armaments, which I can guarantee already they will not be leaving in the car(his laughable lie to the contrary), they'll be able to cow any future protesters, cracking down on any pesky dissent before it has a chance to grow and spread.

In fact, they wouldn't even need to point a single gun anywhere, all it would take would be a few 'hints' that they have the gear, and oh, by the way, they also have authorization to use it against protesters who threaten the safety of those around them, and boy are they starting to feel threatened...

If this goes into action, people will end up dead because of it, that's pretty much a given. You don't ask for heavy duty armaments to use against protesters unless you plan on using it, and while the intent may be just to try and scare people into compliance, if they have the gear, they will use the gear, it's only a question of 'When?'

What could possibly go wrong?

On August 24, 2012, NYPD officers responded to a live shooter situation at the Empire State Building. The shooter was Jeffrey Johnson; he shot Steven Ercolino and then stood over his body, repeatedly firing into him.

NYPD officers opened fire on the shooter, and discharged their weapons 16 times. They killed him.

So yes, let's issue fully-automatic weapons designed for warfare to the NYPD, let's have them carry them around in one of the most densely-populated and traversed cities in the United States, and let's all rest assured that when (not if) they elect to discharge those weapons that it'll all...just work out. Somehow.

Redefining words

>"They’re not carrying [machine guns] at protests">officers would have access to [machine guns] “on them..."

So what exactly should we expect? Cops with machine guns slung over their backs? Is it only considered "carrying" if their hands are on the weapons? Just like your data isn't "collected" until an NSA analyst looks at it?

Re: Redefining words

If I had to guess, the first statement was a lie, the second the truth, unless he's trying to say that while they will be carrying the new gear as part of the 'regular' gear, when it comes to protests they'll be leaving the stuff behind, which I rather doubt was the intention.

and cue the FBI!

Since the FBI seems to send in their own "provokers" to protests to incite breaking in to stores and they "groom" their own terrorists (see all of the stories on both topics in Techdirt), now NYPD just needs to show up with their rifles and machine guns and open fire to get rid of all of those pesky citizens and their lousy rights with just the release of a few clips into the crowds. That will certainly look good on the evening news......

Re: Different from SWAT?

How would this unit be different from SWAT? They'd have the ability to fire their weapons set @ full auto. SWAT uses semi-auto and they can empty a clip very quickly with reasonable accurately. This new murder squad will be able to deal out death to large crowds without needing any of that pesky aiming like SWAT does.

Seeing the turnout for Charlie Hebdo must have scared him enough to propose this. I think Murder Squad is fitting. They might not have killed anyone yet but fully automatic weapons are designed for one thing. Equipping officers like this is making them ready for war.

Murder Squads

Actually I think the term massacre squad is more apt since the end result will be described and remembered as a massacre. Like that King Street affair.

I, however, cannot see how this could get spun or even minimized in the aftermath. It would be stupid to spray automatic fire into even a rioting mob. It would be stupid even to arm common officers with automatic weapons.

It seems like this is to counter the fact that citizens are attempting to participate in the democratic process more through protests. Can't have that. Only corporate interests should be represented by government and anyone that objects is a terrorist.

Maybe we have this all wrong?

Given previous states of confusion evidenced by the NYPD, maybe their plan is not to treat protestors like terrorists, but to treat terrorists like protestors?

Should some terrorists appear in NYC, the NYPD SRG will set up some barriers, clear a bit of space around them, and then randomly beat, pepper spray, and arrest some of them. The rest of the terrorists will be told to leave the city. The SRG will then go back to trying to figure out how to remove their machine guns from their holsters, and wondering why they were each only given one bullet.

I'm starting to think 9/11 was fabricated and that the nut jobs were right given the fact that we haven't had a single attack from the middle east in 15 years. That's assuming that 9/11 was done by Arabs.

I mean, France, Germany, Britain, has at least 10-20 attacks in this span by Islamic extremists...who happen to be European themselves? (which I don't understand...)

Re:

| I'm starting to think 9/11 was fabricated and that the nut| jobs were right given the fact that we haven't had a single | attack from the middle east in 15 years. That's assuming | that 9/11 was done by Arabs.

Well considering that the 'Arabs' in question not only admitted to it but actually bragged about it, and also considering the mountains of other supporting evidence, there's not really any doubt. The people that you refer to as 'nut jobs' are called that for a reason.

They're called nut-jobs because their position is unpopular.

I'm called a nut-job by some because I have no confidence in our Department of Justice to objectively produce a fair ruling. We'd get better results if court cases were resolved by a coin-toss. And this opinion is enough for some to define me as a crackpot, or a nut-job.

The 9/11 attacks were most likely organized by Osama Bin-Laden and carried out by his mujahideen but that isn't to say that all conspiracies to commit great and terrible atrocities are false. Indeed, history is rife with them, and similarly it is full of people deciding that those who question the popular opinion are nut-jobs.

Re: They're called nut-jobs because their position is unpopular.

Same AC here- I was referring only to the 9/11 conspiracy nut jobs. I'm not familiar with the DOJ issue, although I partially do agree with the theme in that some of the rulings handed down seem suspect at best. I didn't mean to imply that anyone suspecting a conspiracy is automatically a nut job, as you point out history if full of examples. But the ones who keep at it long after their initial theories have been disproven, who ignore contradictory evidence, and exhibit ignorance of basic scientific theory to claim that somehow any data that exists does support their theory- total nut jobs (I'm looking squarely at you, 9/11 "truthers").

Re:

1 theory would be that since the CIA created al Qaeda in the 80's to fight soviets in Afghanistan, they still have ties to the group. If they had wanted to create a false flag along the lines of the Reichstag fire. They could have directed their Al Qaeda puppets to cause 9/11 to happen, without telling them the real reasons for doing it.

Such as setting in place the laws and regulations to create a police state tyranny, that benefits those at the top. As well as creating a complacent and apathetic public that willingly gives up their rights and freedoms in the promise of future safety.

Re: Re:

For some people it is simply far too frightening to even consider the notion that their own government would ever do anything against them, let alone create a false flag operation that kills thousands of their fellow citizens in order to achieve public support for actions against an innocent people, that really profits politically and monetarily, only a few individuals at the top of the food chain.

For such people, all of the facts about the myriad false flag operations of the past are simply ignored, and the original official explanations remain valid even after full disclosure of the truth.

Government is in effect, their religion.

It is simply impossible for such people to consider the possibility that their government/authorities could ever lie about its intentions and actions, because then these people would be left bearing the full responsibility for their own security and for determining right from wrong.

These people are followers and make perfect minions for those with money and ambition, since no matter what their authorities do, these people will always accept even the lamest of excuses from that authority and continue to loyally serve its purpose, while believing they are the good guys.

It is state-induced self-delusion on a massive scale and affects the majority of every socially engineered population on earth, today and in the past.

Facts have no affect on such people, as they already know The Official Truth and prefer it over facts because it comforts them and the facts do not.

False flag operations literally depend on the existence and stubborn loyalty of these people to carry the official explanation into history, as they always outnumber the people who do their own research and discover the facts without the assistance or approval of the state authority.

Its another reason why human civilizations continue to repeat the same mistakes over and over again and learn nothing at all from history.

Re: Re: Re:

We have instincts to respect authority much like we have instincts to keep our tribe small (i.e. chase off the wierdos).

Remember that massive civilizations are a hack of our hunter-gatherer selves. A successful hack, mind you, in that large civilizations better stave off germs and enemies than our smaller bands. But most of us are going to act on those primitive instincts rather than obey the rational and learned rules that sustain large pluralist societies.

So yes, people will blindly obey authority without question. But that's normal for us apes. Hesitation, considering authority critically, challenging wrongful decrees, these are learned. These are exceptional.

Re:

I mean, France, Germany, Britain, has at least 10-20 attacks in this span by Islamic extremists...who happen to be European themselves? (which I don't understand...)

So what in the hell is going on?

Islam in Europe is very different from Islam in America. In Europe, lots of Middle Eastern Muslims came there to work, and a lot of that work has since dried up. Many of them now live in poor neighborhoods with not much opportunity, and don't feel a part of the society around them. A perfect recipe for radicalization. By contrast, Muslims in the US (generalizing here) are better integrated and view themselves as Americans who are Muslim more than Muslims who happen to be in America.

The style of a specific criminal

This reflects the state of our state

In a democratic republic, we are allowed to have our own opinions as well as to assemble and publicly express those opinions when they differ from that of the state. We are no longer in such a republic. We are now in a police state and we either agree with the state or we are the enemy.

Way to shoot yourselves in the foot, guys

If the NYPD is going to conflate peaceful, constitutionally-protected protest activities with domestic terrorism with all the heavy-handed tactics that implies, the message the protesters are liable to take away from that is: "If the cap fits, wear it."

I give it two more excessive-force scandals before we see one of these protests go full Bloody Sunday, and then all those surplus MRAPs might actually be good for something.

Bratton stated that responding to protests and terrorist attacks require "overlapping skills," hence the creation of a single unit.

Yeah, that makes sense alright. One is a crowd gathering, one is a crowd leaving. That's quite some overlap. /s

When the cops themselves provide the anarchists so they have an excuse to get involved and you have special units with machine guns and are equipped with long rifles, you turn plans to assassinate the leaders of a protest into a reality.

The Occupy Wall Street was about peaceful protest. They had this as a constant message; no violence, no destruction. Yet mysteriously, there was all sorts of mischief that occurred to validate police involvement. Crap in Oakland the police were telling vagrants known to have violence issues there was free food at the OWS encampment. Plans were drawn up to assassinate the OWS leaders with silenced sniper rifles.

Re: Machine guns

Thinking that they need such weapons indicate that they are either thinking that they will have to fight a full scale civil war, or more likely, indicates that they do not understand the uses of such weapons, and what weapons are suitable for use in urban areas. The professional terrorist fighters choose weapons like the H&K MP5 for situations where innocent civilians may be nearby.When range safety for a weapon requires several miles for overshoot safety, the weapon is not suitable for police work.

Re: Re: Machine guns

Thinking that they need such weapons indicate that they are either thinking that they will have to fight a full scale civil war, or more likely, indicates that they do not understand the uses of such weapons, and what weapons are suitable for use in urban areas.

They understand perfectly well.

Protesters are unhappy with the way things are. They want to change things, sometimes substantially, which makes them a threat to those in power. Those in power want to be prepared to instantly squash any uprising that might occur.

In their eyes, protesters are every bit as much of a threat to their power as terrorists.

War Crimes

Excessive civilian casualties may not be a war crime but it may be a crime against humanity.

When Hezbollah launched a barrage of missiles at Israel from Lebanon not long ago (no casualties), Israel used that attack as an excuse to launch an all out bombing campaign while the UN decided whether or not that was overkill.

They dropped US-designed cluster bombs in excess and though they are anti-personnel (anti-infantry) they dropped far more than needed for the populations of the area...sometimes in unpopulated areas.

Now, no-one has fessed to this strategy, but cluster bombs are full of little metal spherical bomblets and tend to have an over 40% fuze failure, so they littered the countryside with thousands of unexploded bomblets, just the sort of thing that would attract curious kids.

It's a war crime to set up minefields without marking them. It's NOT a war crime to drop so many cluster bombs in an area that you've essentially peppered it with landmines.

Re: Machine guns

I was wondering about that, especially since they were being differentiated from long arms. Are we talking actual belt-fed, mounted machine-gun emplacements? One shot from most of those will handily shoot the engine block out of a car.

Commonly riot control is done with armor and batons with one sharpshooter. The police in the Ferguson affair were armed with shotguns and assault rifles (I assume loaded with some sort of crowd-control ammunition.)

But there's no place for a machine gun in a civilian protest unless you plan on it turning into a massacre.

Which may well be the intent of the NYPD. May not help their popularity though.

Re: Re: Machine guns

Armored Humvees and MWRAPS come equipped with machinegun turrets (as well as gun ports located all around) although most in police use deploy a rifleman instead of a (mounted) machine gun. Maybe that will change, and those in NYC will have .50 BMG machine guns mounted on them, just like the ones the US military uses in war zones.

Although the general public often equates the word "machine gun" with any type of automatic firearm (such as 'sub-machine gun' or 'automatic rifle' - which are separate types of gun classifications) commissioner Bill Bratton has spent his entire adult life in the military and police, so we can only assume that when he says "machine gun" he means exactly that -- machine gun -- rather than a select-fire rifle or SMG.

Not enough heavy weaponry

If they see a need for real machine guns, they surely could improve their security with some mortars, napalm and flamethrowers.I see no reason why the boys in blue shouldn't get to play with the nice stuff.

I mean, the old flamethrower is just gathering dust and begging to be used to help with the protests from the latest down town mortar incident.

If they are so deathly afraid of an armed insurrection or military-styled "terrorists" isn't that what the National Guard should be for?

This has to be some kind of missunderstanding. Assult rifles is overkill. Machine guns isnt just overkill its less usefull for anything that the police will handle.Machine guns are bulky,innacurate and heavy weapons used to fight Emus. You fire one, and anything in that general direction runs an decent risk to die.

To my limited knowledge:

Anything heavy (weight) and with a long barrel or hight (full auto) firing rate is unsuitable and unpractical for close combat like indoors.SUBmachine guns like mp5 are used by ''tactical forced entry'' units because you can kill the guy with the gun without hitting hostages etc. Machine guns are bulky and kill everything in the room.

Out in the open it can't be used in a city without risking collateral damage like loss in lives and material damage. Whitch is why sniper/marksman type weapons that can hit a specific target is prefered in friendly areas.

Social sickness

It'll soon become the new "action" wave of all Five Eyes nations to create "Special Forces" groups that deal exclusively with propaganda and perception over issues that bond citizens and terrorists, citizens and dug dealers, citizens and hackers, or citizens and protestors.....etc..

The Nazis called their most notorious special forces group, the Gestapo.

Its called fascism folks. Its a social cancer.

Your social immune system is compromised, or fascism would not be able to get a foot-hold. It attacks only weak social systems that have become corrupted from within and apathetic from below.

Either bend over and take it, or get healthy, cuz its always terminal.